Doug, while I happen to agree with you, you took the opposite side of the argument when we discussed Feinstein and whether she should debate her opponent.

Basically, your point now was my point then.

Feinstein's opponent "wants a level of viewership and attention that he (she) has not earned."

You would argue that the Republican candidate for US Senate is a minor party candidate, beneath a 15% support threshold? That was the question posed.

The irony I was pointing out in yours was treating Romney and Feinstein differently. Difference on my side is that income details of previous years is arguably PRIVATE information already reviewed by the IRS and others while positions on issues and being pinned down in a debate on how you will vote and held to defend your votes in the senate is RELEVANT to the election. Neither is a requirement for office. I said shame on her. In a debate she would have to answer to a couple of liberal reporters and the viewers, not just to the 15% candidates. I wouldn't vote for her either way, nor will you for Romney.

No, I was arguing that the Republican candidate for US Senate in CA ""wants a level of viewership and attention that he (she) has not earned."

As for tax returns, we agree to disagree. If you are running for President, and if you are worth a quarter of a billion dollars, and further, much of your income is generatedoffshore, I think the American people would like to know more details. It's not a "requirement", but it is a debatable point. And I think it has hurt Romney's credibility and imageby not turning them over a long time ago.

As for Feinstein, she doesn't need your vote, she is going to win easily. As for Romney, even if he had my vote I doubt he will win.

The published polling in this year's presidential race is unusually inaccurate because this is the first election in which who votes determines how they vote. Obama's massive leads among blacks, Latinos, young people, and single women vie with Romney's margin among the elderly, married white women, and white men. Tell me your demographic and I'll tell you who you're voting for and I'll be right at least two times out of three!

Most pollsters are weighting their data on the assumption that the 2012 electorate will turn out in the same proportion as the 2008 voters did. But polling indicates a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the president among his core constituency. He'll still carry them by heavy margins, but the turnout will likely lag behind the 2008 stats. (The 2008 turnout was totally unlike that in other years with all-time historic high turnouts among Obama's main demographic groups).

Specifically, most pollsters are using 2008 party preferences to weight their 2012 survey samples, reflecting a much larger Democratic preference than is now really the case.

In my own polling, I found a lurch to the Democrats right after their convention, but subsequent research indicates that it has since petered out. Indeed, when one compares party identification in the August and September polls of this year in swing states, the Democratic Party identification is flat while the ranks of Republicans rose by an average of two points per state.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen has the best solution to the party id problem. He weights his polls to reflect the unweighted party identification of the previous three weeks, so he has a dynamic model which adjusts for sampling error but still takes account of gradual changes in the electorate's partisan preferences.

Finally, with Obama below 50% of the vote in most swing states, he is hitting up against a glass ceiling in the high 40s. He can't get past it except in heavily Democratic states like New York or California. The first time Obama breaks 50 will not be on Election Day. Either he consistently polls above 50% of the vote or he won't ever get there in the actual vote.

So here's where the race really stands today based on Rasmussen's polling:

• Romney leads Obama in the following states the president carried in 2008: Iowa (44-47) North Carolina (45-51), Colorado (45-47), and New Hampshire (45-48). He'll probably win them all. (34 electoral votes).

This comes to 218 of the 270 Romney needs. But...

• Obama is below 50% of the vote in a handful of key swing states and leads Romney by razor thin margins in each one. All these states will go for Romney unless and until Obama can show polling support of 50% of the vote:

• Obama leads in Ohio (47-46) and Virginia (49-48) by only 1 point (31 electoral votes)

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." --Samuel Adams (1749)

In the conservative and business media, there is much perplexity and vexation over the inverse relationship between Barack Hussein Obama's rising job approval ratings and our nation's failing economic status. Typifying the confusion is this missive from The Wall Street Journal: "The paradox of this presidential campaign is that the worse the economic news gets, the more Barack Obama seems to climb in the polls. The lousy unemployment numbers in May, June, July and August corresponded with a slight rise in Mr. Obama's approval rating. Ditto with the abysmal poverty numbers released two weeks ago."

However, given a little insight into human nature, there is nothing contradictory about Obama's polling and the economies decline. The only thing that perplexes me about these popularity metrics is why anyone would be perplexed.

Now that the latest data on median household income indicates it declined by $4,520, or 8.2 percent, since Obama took office, and U.S. economic growth has been revised downward to a meager 1.3 percent, Obama's lead over the Romney-Ryan ticket will likely increase another point.

Why?

A majority of the voters who decide presidential elections -- those in the murky middle between Republicans and Democrats -- are experiencing significant distress about the future of their livelihoods. Thus, they are gravitating toward the more convincing promise of safety and security. In the context of the current presidential campaign, however defiant of logic, the "undecided" are being lured by the greatest of lies -- that socialist statism will protect them.

Some erudite analysts suggest that the upcoming election will mirror the 1980 contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. However, unlike the Carter v. Reagan paradigm of the last great recession, when Ronald Reagan devoted his campaign to restoring the grassroots optimism necessary for reversing the crisis of confidence miring our economy in the mud, Romney is facing a much more menacing foe -- an ideological socialist who is operating on the FDR paradigm.

In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, more than 20 percent of the workforce was idle. At that time, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched a campaign against Republican Herbert Hoover that was built on the populist socialism themes that had spread like a blight over Eastern Europe. The key elements of that paradigm were classist disparity and wealth redistribution -- precisely the themes Obama used during the precipitous economic decline of 2008 to defeat John McCain.

FDR, in his defense of Democratic Socialism, offered this dubious classist assertion: "Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle." Of course, Roosevelt was paraphrasing the doctrine of Karl Marx, whose maxim declared, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

FDR was able to implement far more of his statist New Deal solutions in his first four years than Obama -- who has faced stiff opposition from the House of Representatives since Republicans retook the majority in 2010. But Obama, like FDR, is a master propagandist, and his populist socialist appeals resonate beyond the cadres of his state-dependent cult.

Some might argue that FDR had more fertile ground in which to plant his socialist seeds of dissension, but the fact is that real unemployment today is closing in on that of the Great Depression -- 19 percent rather than the current 8.1 percent figure trotted out by Obama's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The latter figure, which is much less alarming, simply ignores the millions of Americans who've given up looking for work and are thus no longer counted in the workforce, and millions more who are underemployed.

Fact is, everyone in America knows someone who has been adversely affected by our economic decline, and most Americans, regardless of political identification, are concerned about their ability to support themselves and their families. In such times of widespread economic distress, the innate tendency to gravitate toward perceived safety, toward even the fantasy of "Hope and Change" in order to move "Forward," is very strong.

As Patrick Henry observed at the dawn of our nation, "It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts."

Moreover, Obama has a propaganda tool FDR could not even imagine -- the mass-Leftmedia conduit into the psyche of the American people, which he uses to dupe the ignorant into trading their votes for socialist entitlements from redistributed wealth.

FDR, in his second presidential campaign, had amassed a powerful coalition of Leftist protagonists that included leaders of urban political machines and unions, the intelligentsia and glitterati, and religious and ethnic minorities. His opponent was a Republican governor who had, in his tenure, embraced some of FDR's statist policies, but who objected to the adverse impact those policies had on private enterprise, and the resulting accumulation of national debt and inherent government waste.

Does anything in that campaign contest sound familiar?

FDR won a historic landslide victory in 1936 -- receiving almost 61 percent of the vote, and went on to win unprecedented third and fourth presidential terms. While the economic efficacy of his New Deal policies did little to restore the economy (the build up for World War II ended the Great Depression), the populist political efficacy of his socialist doctrines proved very effective during a time of pronounced economic decline.

So what is Mitt Romney to do?

I'm not suggesting that Romney can't defeat Obama's socialist propaganda, but in order to win this election, he can't only rely on the 1980 political paradigm based on the question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Romney must exit the role of "diplomat" and assume the part of a warrior. He must articulate the threat to Liberty inherent to Obama's ideology.

He must devote the remaining weeks of this election not only to the primacy of free enterprise over socialism, but to the greater cause of Liberty over tyranny. Paul Ryan gets it -- but he is not at the top of the ticket.

Romney must go on the offensive and take the high ground.

For example, Romney wasted most of last week ducking and covering for his remarks about the fact that a large percentage of Obama's electoral support is bought with redistributed wealth and entitlements. Romney should have instead noted that the Left was howling because they believe that ALL Americans are dependent on government -- which is precisely what Obama himself recently proclaimed in his now-infamous assertion, "You didn't build that. Somebody else [read: "government"] made that happen."Time is not on the side of Liberty. There is little distinction between Marxist Socialism, Nationalist Socialism and Democratic Socialism. Socialism irrevocably results in state tyranny, and another Obama term may prove the end of the Constitutional Republic established by our Founders and supported by generations of Patriots since.

Though our Constitution's 22nd Amendment, if still applicable in 2016, may exclude Obama from seeking a third and fourth term, he has already laid the foundation in his first term for "fundamentally transforming the United States of America" into the ObamaNation Plantation. He only needs one more term of economic decline to ensure the systemic subjugation of the American people -- at least until the next insurrection to restore Liberty.

Obama recently remarked, "The most important lesson I've learned is you can't change Washington from the inside." Those words may prove more prophetic than he intended.

"For six months, [Mitt Romney's] been matching Obama small ball for small ball. A hit-and-run critique here, a slogan-of-the-week there. His only momentum came when he chose Paul Ryan and seemed ready to engage on the big stuff: Medicare, entitlements, tax reform, national solvency, a restructured welfare state. Yet he has since retreated to the small and safe. When you're behind, however, safe is fatal. Even his counterpunching has gone miniature. Obama has successfully painted Romney as an out of touch, unfeeling plutocrat whose only interest is to cut taxes for the rich. Romney has complained in interviews that it's not true. He has proposed cutting tax rates, while pledging that the share of the tax burden paid by the rich remains unchanged (by 'broadening the base' as in the wildly successful, revenue-neutral Reagan-O'Neill tax reform of 1986). But how many people know this? Where is the speech that hammers home precisely that point, advocates a reformed tax code that accelerates growth without letting the rich off the hook, and gives lie to the Obama demagoguery about dismantling the social safety net in order to enrich the rich? ... Make the case. Go large. About a foreign policy in ruins. About an archaic, 20th-century welfare state model that guarantees 21st-century insolvency. And about an alternate vision of an unapologetically assertive America abroad unafraid of fundamental structural change at home. It might just work. And it's not too late." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

Opinion in Brief

"At home, unemployment is stuck above 8 percent. Twenty-three million are out of work. Millions of others have given up looking for jobs. One American in six is on food stamps. Small businesses are terrified of ObamaCare. The economy ran out of gas four years ago and the president still thinks the only way to get it going again is to fill up the tank with trillions of dollars of debt and make successful people pay for the tow truck. Overseas, we have a dead ambassador and three other dead Americans in Libya. Dozens of our embassies are being threatened by mobs. Iran is building a nuke. Syria is mired in a bloody civil war. Egypt's new democracy is turning against us. ... Meanwhile, what does President 'Eye Candy' do [last] week? He goes before the United Nations and can't bring himself to even mention the words 'Islamic extremists.' ... But in their perverse way of thinking, the Obama Gang wants the American people to believe Romney is a bad guy for creating wealth and being a successful businessman. Americans are supposed to be angry with Romney for paying 'only' 14 percent in taxes or reducing his federal tax bite by giving $4 million to charity in 2011. ... Mitt needs to show us how angry he is at what Obama has done to America. He needs to show us he's as 'mad as hell' and can't take it for another four years. Come on, Mitt -- get as mad as the rest of us." --columnist Michael Reagan

Danger: Obama Outspending Romney On TVBy DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on October 1, 2012Printer-Friendly VersionFor the week just ended, the Obama campaign outspent Romney by a significant margin in key swing states. In Iowa, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin, the Obama campaign spent $16.6 during the week of September 24th while Romney spent only $12.5 million.

Despite the widespread assumption that Romney would have more television funding in this critical final six weeks, it appears that Obama is, in fact, seizing the advantage.

It is particularly disconcerting that Romney is running a full million dollars behind Obama in the crucial state of Florida and is behind 2:1 in Iowa and Colorado. (In New Hampshire, Obama appears to be buying Boston TV heavily while Romney is either not purchasing any or doing so very lightly.

What are we to make of this disparity?

Romney must be burning cash for non-media purposes at a fierce rate.

But, more important, what are we going to do about it?

GIVE MONEY TO ROMNEY!

No matter how you read the polls, this election is balanced on a knife edge. A recent Gravis poll shows less than one point separating them in Florida!

Even if you've given to Romney before, do it again!

Our nation is at stake! If we lose this election, there is no tomorrow!!!!

A serious George Will column from a few days ago with good suggestions for the moderator. I like that he puts questions about the judiciary first including a question about 'Kelo', the horrible public taking for private purposes ruling and a question on Citizens United. The last question is pretty funny.

The spectacles we persist in dignifying as presidential “debates” — two-minute regurgitations of rehearsed responses — often subtract from the nation’s understanding. But beginning Wednesday, these less-than-Lincoln-Douglas episodes might be edifying if the candidates could be inveigled into plowing fresh ground.

Concerning the judiciary

Although the average age of the Supreme Court justices (66) is less than that of the Rolling Stones (68), three justices will be in their 80s before the next presidential term ends, so the next president probably can solidify today’s conservative majority or create a liberal majority.

For Mitt Romney: Many conservatives advocate “judicial restraint.” They denounce “judicial activism” and define it as not properly deferring to decisions by government’s majoritarian branches. Other conservatives praise “judicial engagement” and define it as actively defending liberty against overbearing majorities. Do you favor “restraint” or “engagement”? Do you reject the Kelo decision, in which the Supreme Court deferred to governments’ desire to seize private property and give it to wealthier private interests who would pay higher taxes?

For Barack Obama: You deplore the court’s Citizens United decision. What is your constitutional basis for rejecting the decision’s principle that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they come together in corporate entities (mostly nonprofit advocacy corporations such as the Sierra Club) to speak collectively? You say you would “seriously consider” amending the First Amendment to empower Congress to regulate political speech. Explain why you would choose to make the Bill of Rights less protective.

For Romney: The Republican platform endorses using “whatever legislative method is most feasible” to ban flag desecration. Can you distinguish this from the ­anti-blasphemy laws in some Islamic countries? Should we criminalize expressive acts that offend?

Concerning foreign policy

For both: On Oct. 7, we begin the 12th year of the war in Afghanistan, and 51 recent NATO fatalities have been at the hands of our supposed Afghan allies, causing U.S. commanders to indefinitely suspend many joint operations. Why are we staying there 27 more months?

For Romney: You envision “countervailing duties” to punish China for manipulating the value of its currency. Do the “quantitative easings” by Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve, which vastly expanded the money supply, constitute currency manipulation? Would duties increasing the prices Americans pay for Chinese imports violate your vow to not raise taxes?

For Obama: Your campaign boasts about increasing the number of unfair-trade charges against China. How would Americans’ welfare be enhanced by raising the prices they pay for consumer goods and production materials from China?

For both: You are correct that China subsidizes politically connected businesses. Does not our Export-Import Bank do this?

For Obama: Are GM and Chrysler subsidized? Are they politically connected businesses?

Concerning domestic policy

For Obama: Your opponent proposes cutting income tax rates 20 percent and implies that he would pay for this partly by means-testing some deductions (e.g., mortgage interest payments and charitable giving). Do you oppose his plan for making the income tax more progressive?

For Romney: You say “redistribution” has “never been a characteristic of America.” You’re kidding, right? Is redistribution not one purpose of progressive taxation? Is not most of what government does — from agriculture subsidies to subsidized student loans to entitlements — the redistribution of wealth from one cohort or region to another?

For Obama: You recently said that changing Washington “from the outside” is “how some of our biggest accomplishments like health care got done — mobilizing the American people.” You’re kidding, right? A majority of the American people never supported passage of Obamacare. Did you not secure passage by deals with Big Pharma and other ­inside-Washington players?

For both: Do you agree that a financial institution that is too big to fail is too big to exist? If not, why not? The biggest banks emerged from the Great Recession bigger. At the end of 2011, the five biggest (JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs) held more than $8.5 trillion in assets, which is 56 percent of the 2011 gross domestic product. Why should they not be broken up?

For Obama: Your deep-blue Illinois — like another essentially one-party Democratic state, California — is buckling under the weight of its portion of the estimated $2.5 trillion in unfunded state pension obligations. Will you promise to oppose attempts to force the taxpayers to bail out badly governed states?

For both: Do you assume that the Almighty is not paying attention whenever you say “I approve this message”?

Romney's Middle-Class Tax Sale How the Republican can win the debate he's now losing by default..Article Video Comments (558) more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».smaller Larger facebooktwittergoogle pluslinked ininShare.0EmailPrintSave ↓ More ..smaller Larger In this peculiar election year, President Obama is pulling off the small miracle—no, make that the kind of thing that happens in Lourdes—of winning the tax debate. This should be impossible, and Mitt Romney has to turn that around if he wants to win.

Despite a tax platform that is a Walter Mondale replay, polls show that Mr. Obama has sanded off the traditional GOP tax edge and the lead Mr. Romney held as recently as late summer. An ABC-Washington Post poll gives Mr. Obama a 49%-44% advantage on taxes, with Mr. Romney's credibility slipping from 48% in August, and Mr. Obama's surging from 43%. The same poll has 57% of registered voters saying Mr. Romney would do more to favor the wealthy than the middle class and merely 35% believing the opposite.

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Human Events columnist David Harsanyi on what Mitt Romney needs to do and say in tomorrow night's debate. Photo: Getty Images..The main cause of this role reversal is that Mr. Obama has driven a relentless tax message—albeit a wildly deceptive one: That Mr. Romney is a sleeper agent who wants to raise taxes on middle-class families by $2,000 to finance tax cuts for him and his fellow tycoons. Mr. Obama invokes this putative secret plot at every rally, and so does every surrogate down to dogcatcher, plus his TV commercials.

As a factual matter, the claim is as bogus as any in years because Mr. Romney has proposed no such thing. The claim hangs on an August 1 report by the liberal Tax Policy Center that even its authors have since admitted was merely "stylized."

The outfit's gnomes concluded that Mr. Romney's actual reform proposal—cutting rates across the board by 20%, combined with closing loopholes at the higher end—was "mathematically impossible." They then imagined multiple details for a "Romney" tax plan that existed only in their own minds and that would raise taxes among the lower brackets by $86 billion.

In a recent paper, Alex Brill of the American Enterprise Institute pointed out errors that—by the Tax Policy Center's own reasoning—would take that figure down to $41 billion, then to $12 billion, then to a net tax cut. Numerous other critiques have forced the Tax Policy Center to walk back its assumptions or disavow them entirely or change the subject, even if the Obama campaign continues to quote them and the press corps plays dumb.

Amid this barrage, Mr. Romney has also played dumb, as in silent. Only this week has Boston rolled out a response ad to Mr. Obama's middle-class tax hike TV buy, which ran unanswered for a month in a half-dozen swing states.

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CloseAssociated Press .The new Romney ad throws back the charge, noting that Democrats have already raised taxes on the middle class through ObamaCare's 18 separate tax hikes totaling some $836.3 billion over the next decade. He ought to throw in the individual mandate to buy insurance that Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly called a "tax" in order to hold it constitutional.

This is modest progress, but Mr. Romney's larger failing is that he hasn't even tried to sell his own proposals, much less their broader pro-growth, practical and moral foundations. Sometimes he's added to the public confusion, such as his defensive concession in Ohio a few days ago that voters shouldn't "be expecting a huge cut in taxes, because I'm also going to lower deductions and exemptions."

A better argument would begin by explaining how lower rates and a more efficient tax code—simpler, stabler, more transparent—would increase economic growth that would raise incomes for everyone. According to the Census Bureau, U.S. median income has fallen by 4.1% since the recession ended three years ago. Simply increasing after-tax take-home pay would help, but so would improving the incentives to work, save, invest and create jobs.

To refute Mr. Obama's class-warfare obsession, Mr. Romney could also point out that there aren't a lot of taxpayers like Mitt Romney out there, he of the $1,935,708 tax bill in 2011. Only about 13% of taxpayers earn more than $100,000. The total annual after-tax income of all millionaires and billionaires today is about $709 billion, according to IRS data.

What this means is that even if he increased tax rates on the rich to 100%, Mr. Obama would still have to find more revenue to pay for his spending ambitions. This means he's inescapably going to have to tee up the middle class for a tax wallop unlike anything in U.S. history. Mr. Romney should say that, having taken federal spending to a quarter of GDP, a second Obama Administration would make a European-style value-added tax, carbon tax or another money maker inevitable.

As for "fairness," Mr. Romney could point out that high tax rates inevitably lead Congress to pass loopholes that the wealthiest are best able to exploit. Middle-class Americans can't afford lobbyists on Capitol Hill, but Mr. Obama's rich friends at Solyndra and Goldman Sachs can. Tax reform will improve growth and fairness, which is what happened after Ronald Reagan and Democrats in Congress united to pass reform in 1986.

So far this year's tax debate features one candidate with no credible plan running against a fake plan that his allies made up and another candidate with an admirable plan that for some reason he doesn't want to talk about. Mr. Obama is winning by default, but that doesn't mean Mr. Romney can't execute one of those turnarounds he's famous for, if he tries.

Agreed-- very good night for Romney. Greta Van Susteren in the post debate commentary said that Bill Maher said that Obama looked like he needed his teleprompter and Dennis Miller wondered if Obama's kicked ass was covered by Obamacare

Mark Schields on PBS, normally a total leftist shill, said the President looked "rusty".

Award winning observation: Al Gore? says it might have been the altitude of 5000 feet that hurt Obama. The President flew in 2 hours before the debate. Romney did his debate prep in Denver.

Good job by Jim Lehrer. He couldn't hold these guys to a clock but he kept the discussion steered toward substance. No slanted questions in either direction that I noticed.

Hats off to the kids at the University of Denver. They got to witness something historic and they kept quiet the whole time - something the adults have never been able to do.

Liberals and Obama supportede seem perplexed that Obama hardly got off any cheap shots, like repeating Romney's latest gaffe about the 47%. Romney led with the latest Biden gaffe: "Under the president’s policies, middle-income Americans have been buried."

Romney went only part way into selling his economic plan. His advisers must think it too wonkish to distinguish between taxes and tax rates, a big pet peeve of mine. But he kept following up and getting at that point in different ways, that he does not accept that lowering rates is a $5 trillion cut, it will grow revenues. Later on the deficit he nailed it with the 3 ways to close the gap: 1) raise taxes, 2) cut spending and 3) grow the economy, "because if more people work in a growing economy they’re paying taxes and you can get the job done that way". He left room on the table for Paul Ryan to follow up on the concepts of growth economics.

You can bet the campaign is not confident in knowing the next major event coming is Biden v. Ryan with 90 more uninterrupted minutes on national television.

The Ryan/Biden debate will turn the generational storyline on its ear. Ryan is a sharp young guy with a mastery of both policy and vision. He goes up against an old guy with neither, who lacks a notable accomplishment in 40 years in the Senate and White House. Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972 when Joe Biden was elected to the Senate.

In both cases, Pres Obama and VP Biden are not accustomed to having their talking points challenged. The President's only two real electoral victories came against Hillary with an identical ideology and McCain who refused to take off the gloves. Both live in a political bubble where rarely in their careers have they faced a tough question or a tough opponent challenging their talking points.

President Obama's lowest points IMO:"we’ve tried both approaches. The approach that Governor Romney’s talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003. And we ended up with the slowest job growth in 50 years."

IN FACT WE HAD 52 MONTHS OF UNINTERRUPTED JOB GROWTH AND A 44% INCREASE IN FEDERAL REVENUES IN 4 YEARS.

The President continued:"...Bill Clinton tried the approach that I’m talking about. We created 23 million new jobs. We went from deficit to surplus, and businesses did very well."

HE JUST TOOK CREDIT FOR BILL CLINTON'S PRESIDENCY WHILE PRETENDING THE LAST 4 YEARS DIDN'T HAPPEN. BILL CLINTON PIVOTED WHEN HIS POLICIES AND PROPOSALS FAILED, PRES. OBAMA DID NOT.

I'd like to pretend the last 4-6 years didn't happen too!

In another exchange: On healthcare, Romney proved his ability to reach across the aisle and Pres. Obama astonishingly claimed Obamacare without a single Republican vote "was a Republican idea".

Quite persuasively covering one of his weaknesses, Romney said "what we did in Massachusetts is a model for the nation, state by state" [not for the federal government].

Romney continued: "I said that at that time. The federal government taking over health care for the entire nation and whisking aside the 10th Amendment, which gives states the rights for these kinds of things, is not the course for America to have a stronger, more vibrant economy."

But seeing the debate from a professional's eye, Romney scored a number of key victories in the turf wars that underlie this campaign. These victories are likely to last and shape the final month of this race long after the glow from Romney's performance has faded.

1. Romney got out from under Obama's character assassination negative ads. By failing to raise the Cayman Islands bank account, the 47% speech, Bain Capital or the tax return issue in the debate, he almost dismissed them from the campaign. Good-bye two hundred million dollars in advertising.

If Obama really believed that Romney was as callous, heartless, and dishonest as his ads make him out to be, he would have raised the issues in the debate. It almost belies the statement, "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message," that begins or ends every one of his negative ads. If the candidate doesn't believe in his own negative attacks enough to articulate them in a debate, why should the rest of us base our vote on them?

2. Romney insulated himself -- with Obama's consent -- from the doubts of the elderly about his policy on their benefits. After the 47% comments, Romney risked losing the elderly for fear that he meant to curtail their entitlements. But Obama helpfully agreed that his Social Security policy did not differ from Romney's at all and that either way the benefits would be ok. And he agreed that neither he nor his opponent would cut Medicare for those now over 65 or those closing in on retirement. So the 47% is now aimed at welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid which is the target Romney originally intended and Obama let him get away with it.

3. Obama let Romney sell the notion that he was cutting Medicare for current beneficiaries by $716 billion and let Romney repeat that stat without contradiction. And he let Romney inject the 15 member board -- the rationing board -- into the debate without trying to blunt Romney's accusation that it would decide on who gets what treatment. Obama could have embarrassed Romney by pointing out that Ryan kept that cut in his budget (since backed away from it) but didn't do so. Now this campaign will be about two issues, not just one. Now the economy and Obamacare will be the fulcrums on which this race with hinge.

4. Romney was able to make the debate, and therefore the race, about big issues like the size of government, the impact of taxes on growth, the need to drill for oil, Obamacare and rationing. He elevated not just his game but the race to these fundamental questions on all of which Republicans and Romney have an advantage.

5. He explained well how a tax increase for the "wealthy" was really a tax increase on small businesses that hire half of all American workers. By explaining that these owners are taxed as individuals not as corporations (Subchapter S) without getting into the weeds, he made us understand that fighting these taxes is not about battling for yachts and private planes but about creating jobs.

Therefore, Romney took away Obama's negative campaign, his class warfare, his entitlement issue, the Medi-scare tactic, and much of the president's case. In subsequent debates, Obama will be bound by what he said last night. He cannot undo his concessions and without doing so, it will be very hard for him to reconquer the ground he has lost.

Dick Morris has this right: "Romney took away Obama's negative campaign, his class warfare, his entitlement issue, the Medi-scare tactic, and much of the president's case."

This wasn't a typical candidate vs candidate comparison. Each had something very specific they needed to accomplish.

Obama needed to convey how the next 4 years if he is reelected will be any better than the last 4 years. He didn't even try to make the case: In closing he said, "I’ll fight just as hard in a second term". Huh?? Obama also needed to bump up the enthusiasm gap of his base, and he took a giant step backward.

Romney needed to make a small numbers of swing voters comfortable seeing him as their President, and with a decent shot at turning things around. That is what I think happened.

The mainstream missed a part of the story. Romney had a great convention that softened and humanized his image and Obama had a vacuous one that bumped the polls but didn't answer the question of how things get better without changing course.

Obama and his campaign have been running against a straw man. In the debate he faced a real man with an exceptional background, talent and turnaround skills.

Romney in Presidential demeanor described how bad things are under Obama without using the F-word. F is for failure.

Swing State Polls Are RiggedBy DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on October 5, 2012

Printer-Friendly VersionAfter Wednesday night's smashing debate victory for Romney, we may expect the national and swing state polls to change in the Republican's direction. But not by as much as they should. These polls are biased in favor of Obama and here's the data to prove it:

From noted Republican pollster John McLaughlin comes a clear and convincing exposé of the bias of media polls in the swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.

McLaughlin reviewed exit polls in each state for the past four elections. From this data about who actually voted, he found that the party divisions manifest on election day have little to do with the samples upon which the media is basing its polling. And, coincidentally, it is always the Republican vote that tends to be undercounted.

In Florida, for example, McLaughlin finds that the average of the last four elections produced a turnout of 37% Democrats and 38% Republicans. But here is the partisan distribution of the most recent Florida media polls:

9-26: CBS/NY Times = 36% Dem / 27% Rep

9-23: Wash Post = 35% Dem / 29% Rep

So the media polls reflect a 9 point and six point Democratic edge even though the actual experience of the past four elections has been a 1 point Republican advantage.

Things are no better in Ohio. Here, McLaughlin finds a 2 point Democratic edge in the past four elections (38% Dem, 36% Rep). But the media polls show vastly more Democrats and fewer Republicans in their samples:

9-26: CBS/NY Times = 35% Dem / 26% Rep

9-23: Wash Post = 35% Dem / 27% Rep

9-11: NBC/Wall St Journal = 38% Dem / 28% Rep

Once again, the actual exit poll-measured vote in Ohio shows a 2 point Democratic edge, but the polls reflect Democratic advantages of 9 points, 8 points, and 10 points respectively.

In Virginia, it's the same story. The last four elections have a combined 1 point Republican edge, 37-36. But the media polls show a big pro-Democratic bias:

10/2: Roanoke College = Dem 36% / Rep 27%

9/17: CBS/NYTimes = Dem 35% / Rep 26%

9/16: Washington Post = Dem 35% / Rep 24%

9/11: NBC/Wall St Journal = Dem 31% / Rep 26%

So instead of showing a 1 point Republican edge, these media poll samples show Democratic advantages of 9,9,11, and 5.

The correct conclusion to draw from all these polls is that Romney is comfortably ahead in Virginia and Florida while he holds a slight lead in Ohio. And, remember these polls are all pre-debate!

Also, bear in mind that the undecided vote in all of these polls usually goes against the incumbent.

It is my understanding that foreign donations are illegal. Not that I understand what the hell it is, but it is my understanding that the proper way of doing things is to have a "verifcation firewall"on one's website to screen out foreign donations. Obama did not have this in 2008, nor does he in 2012. Romney does.

One would think that there would be mass outrage about foreign interference in our democratic process, but of course the pravdas have nothing to say about this.

Current through Pub. L. 112-131. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) Prohibition It shall be unlawful for— (1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make— (A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election; (B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or (C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 434 (f)(3) of this title); or (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. (b) “Foreign national” defined As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means— (1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611 (b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or (2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101 (a)(22) of title and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8.

Current through Pub. L. 112-131. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) Prohibition It shall be unlawful for— (1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make— (A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election; (B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or (C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 434 (f)(3) of this title); or (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. (b) “Foreign national” defined As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means— (1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611 (b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or (2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101 (a)(22) of title and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8.

News Editor, Townhall Oct 08, 2012 08:15 AM EST Sign-Up A new report obtained by Townhall from the non-partisan Government Accountability Institute [GAI] shows the Obama campaign has potentially violated federal election law by failing to prevent the use of fraudulent or foreign credit card transactions on the official Obama for America [OFA] donation webpage.

For the past eight months, GAI has been investigating the potential influence of foreign online campaign donations in House, Senate and presidential elections. The report was conducted using spidering software and found thousands of foreign sites linking to campaign donation pages. The investigation was conducted with the guidance of a former U.S. attorney. GAI is led by Peter Schweizer, who recently exposed congressional insider trading in his book Throw Them All Out.

“As FBI surveillance tapes have previously shown, foreign governments understand and are eager to exploit the weaknesses of American campaigns,” the report says. “This, combined with the Internet’s ability to disintermediate campaign contributions on a mass scale, as well as outmoded and lax Federal Election Commission rules, make U.S. elections vulnerable to foreign influence.”

OFA seems to be taking advantage of a “foreign donor loophole” by not using CVV on their campaign donation page. When you donate online to the Obama campaign using a credit card, the contribution webpage does not require donors to enter a secure CVV number (also known as CSC, CVV2 or CVN), the three-digit securing code on the back of credit cards. This code, although not 100 percent effective, is used to ensure a person making a purchase physically possesses the card. According to the report, 90 percent of e-commerce and 19 of the 20 largest charities in the United States use a CVV code, making its use standard industry practice in order to prevent fraud. Another anti-fraud security measure includes software, better known as an Address Verification System, to verify a donor’s address matches the address on file with the credit card company. The investigation could not determine whether OFA is using this type of software to prevent fraudulent or illegal donations.

Because of the lack of a CVV code requirement, the door is opened for OFA to accept robo-donations, or in other words, large numbers of small and automatic donations made online to evade FEC reporting requirements. Although it isn’t illegal to decline the use of a secure CVV credit card code for campaign donations, it is illegal to accept campaign donations from foreign sources. Campaigns are required under criminal code not to solicit, accept or receive foreign donations in any amount. The Federal Elections Commission doesn’t require campaigns to disclose the names of donors making contributions of less than $200 unless audited. In addition, FEC rules don’t require campaigns to keep records of those giving less than $50. These rules combined with the lack of a CVV numbers make it easy for campaigns to get away with taking foreign donations.

According to GAI, it is the duty of the campaign to “ensure compliance with the law. Indeed, they risk criminal prosecution for the conscious failure to do so. This means that whether or not the FEC requires it to be reported, campaigns have an independent duty under the law to discover and protect against criminal campaign contributions.” Protecting against criminal campaign contributions is easily accomplished by requiring a CVV code on the campaign donation page.

OFA has specifically touted its “grassroots” success by showcasing the majority of its donations coming from those giving less than $200. It appears the campaign also solicits funds for less than $200 in order to avoid having to report the name of the person making a donation under FEC rules. The GAI documents included the following email from Barack Obama to campaign supporters:

IT ALL ADDS UP

A large part of the Team Obama operation is outsourced. More than 200 domain names with the word “Obama” in the web address have been purchased. The most significant of these websites may be Obama.com, which is owned by an Obama bundler in Shanghai, China with “questionable business ties to state-run Chinese enterprises,” according to the report.

Obama.com was purchased in 2008, and, although Obama.com is owned by a third party, not the campaign itself, the site redirects its foreign traffic, a whopping 68 percent, directly to the official Obama for America campaign donation page. The Obama campaign’s official and main website, BarackObama.com, sees 43 percent of its traffic coming from foreign IP addresses, according to web metrics firm Markosweb and noted in the report.

According to industry leading web analytics site Markosweb, an anonymously registered redirect site (Obama.com) features 68 % foreign traffic. Starting in December 2011, the site was linked to a specific donation page on the official BarackObama.com campaign website for ten months. The page loaded a tracking number, 634930, into a space on the website labeled "who encouraged you to make this donation." That tracking number is embedded in the source code for Obama.com and is associated with the Obama Victory Fund. In early September 2012, the page began redirecting to the standard Obama Victory Fund donation page. Search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, using common spamming techniques, may have been undertaken by unknown third-parties, generating foreign traffic to Obama.com.

China has a long history of trying to illegally influence American elections. Their efforts were most prominent in the 1990s.

In the past, foreign governments have relied on middlemen to transfer illegal campaign contributions. With the explosion of Internet campaign fundraising, the prospect of foreign powers, criminal gangs, foreign individuals, or domestic fraudsters making direct campaign contributions to American elections becomes far more likely. Put simply, campaign fundraising crimes are now just a click away. Rather than risking detection or relying on a middleman, donations can be anonymously donated through campaign websites. The state of Internet security of many political campaigns’ websites leaves American elections vulnerable to fraud or foreign influence.

AN HONEST MISTAKE, OR SOMETHING MORE?

Is the non-use of CVV code verification simply an oversight or mistake made by Obama for America? Most likely, no. The Obama campaign is willing to pay millions in fees in order to accept unsecured contributions on their donation page without the CVV code. Attorney Kenneth Sukhia analyzed the GAI’s findings and this revelation in the following way in a separate report.

“As GAI points out, if a campaign is truly seeking to do all it can to prevent illicit contributions, there is no reason not to employ these basic fraud prevention tools. First, these tools are easily installed, and once set up, operate with a minimum of administrative oversight by the vendor. They are fully automated, but can be easily re-calibrated as called for. ““Under these circumstances, a campaign’s decision to turn off either of these systems despite the increased fees raises legitimate questions as to a campaign’s knowing failure to use its best efforts to comply with the laws prohibiting foreign contributions. Indeed, it’s reasonable to ask why any campaign would ever opt to pay card issuers more for less information and less security. More importantly, why pay card issuers more when doing so lessens a campaign’s ability to comply with the law? It’s hard to imagine any campaign would pay extra for less security and marketing intelligence, unless it stood to benefit in some way from doing so.”“Because a campaign’s decision to opt out of the standard security measures and to pay more to receive less information about their contributors defies all conventional campaign logic, and because it is difficult to identify a more plausible motive, there is reason to suspect that such decisions may be motivated by the belief that more money could be raised through foreign contributions than lost in added fees by declining security tools designed to stop them.”OFA isn’t run by amateurs and has a highly sophisticated online presence. OFA is known as the “gold standard” in online technology with a Facebook co-founder, veteran YouTube videographer and an award-winning CNN producer keeping everything running smoothly.

Not to mention, the campaign obviously sees the benefits in using a CVV code to prevent fraud. After all, OFA uses a CVV security code for merchandise purchases. To purchase a sweatshirt or other item in the OFA store, a CVV code must be entered at check out, but the donation page does not require a credit card security code to be used. In addition, the chief technology officer of the Obama campaign, Harper Reed, is a former chief technology officer of the T-shirt company Threadless. Threadless requires a CVV code for online purchases. They clearly know how CVV codes work.

THE NUMBERS

As of September 26, 2012, the Obama campaign has raised $271,327,755 in contributions under $200 for the 2012 cycle. In 2008, it was $335,139,233. The Romney campaign has raised just $58,456,968 in contributions under $200 and has all CVV and online security measures in place. In total, the Obama campaign raised $500 million online in 2008 with $335 million in contributions--more than half--falling under the $200 reporting requirement. Obama has raised more online funds than any campaign in history.

As reported over the weekend, the Obama campaign raised $181 million in September alone--only 2 percent of those donations are required to be reported to the FEC.

The campaign said that just over 1.8 million people made donations to the campaign last month. According to the campaign, over 500k of these were brand-new donors, having neither given in 2008 nor 2012. 98% of contributions were under the reporting threshold of $250. Of these, the average contribution was $53. [It's] really a tale of two worlds. 35k people gave an average of $2,600, while just over 1.7 million people gave an average of $53. Half the campaign's haul came from people giving around the maximum amount and half from people who don't have to be disclosed. Seems a bit odd. The average of $53 from small donors is particularly noteworthy. Contributions under $200 don't have to be disclosed, but the campaign still has to keep track of the donor's name, in case subsequent donations push their contribution over the reporting threshold. For contributions under $50, however, the campaign doesn't even have to keep track of the donor's name. It is effectively considered a "petty cash" donation. A person could theoretically make 10 $49 donations and never be reported, even though their total contributions are above the FEC's reporting threshold. With an average donation of $53 from small donors, Obama has A LOT of donors who will never be disclosed and whose names aren't even known to the campaign. Tens of millions of dollars worth.HOW LIABLE?

As previously mentioned, the GAI report mentions campaigns have an obligation to protect against illegal campaign contributions. The law under U.S. Code makes it illegal for campaigns or political committees to accept direct or indirect contributions of money from foreign nationals. It is also illegal for a campaign or committee to “solicit, accept, or receive a contribution from a foreign national." Penalties for violations are stiff, according to the report.

While no person can be held accountable under the law for violations he or she is powerless to prevent or for violations of which a person had no knowledge, the law recognizes that to permit meaningful enforcement a person cannot escape responsibility for a crime by deliberately ignoring facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that a crime is most likely being committed. Moreover, the FEC regulations make it clear that a campaign official cannot avoid criminal culpability by ignoring facts that would lead a reasonable person to inquire whether foreign nationals are contributing funds to the campaign.DIRECT SOLICITATIONS FROM OFA TO FOREIGN NATIONALS AND THE ONLINE PAPER TRAIL

The internet for the Obama campaign has proved to be a cash cow, but it's also provided a digital paper trail of potential illegal activity for investigators. When foreign bloggers received donation solicitations from the Obama campaign, they wrote about it online. GAI found their sites and documented their experiences. Social media accomplished the same thing--an online trail of Obama campaign solicitations to foreign nationals.

1. In July and August, a Chinese blogger reposts letters he has received from the Obama campaign, each of which contains a solicitation for $3 or $5 (note that these smaller donations don’t require the campaign to keep any record of them).118 Markosweb states that 87.8% of the traffic flowing to the site comes from China while only 4.5% is from the United States. The website contains hyperlinks that lead to the campaign’s donation page. The website also contains graphics showing the disparity between Romney’s and the President’s fundraising and a countdown clock to the date of the election. Other than the campaign solicitation letters, the website is in Chinese characters.

2. On August 9th, 2012 the Obama campaign sent a solicitation letter to “Hikemt Hadjy-Zadh,” an Azerbaijani citizen. His email address is on an Azerbaijani domain and he posts numerous solicitation letters he has received from the Obama campaign. Mr. Hadjy-Zadh reposts the complete letters on a discussion forum, including numerous hyperlinks that go directly to the campaign’s donation page.

3. A writer in Vietnam writes on a website for the Vietnam Institute for Development Studies (a government-backed think tank) and posts emails he has received from my.barackobama.com with more than 24 total links to the campaign’s donate page embedded in the emails. The website is in the Vietnamese language, hosted on a Vietnamese server, and uses a Vietnamese domain address. In one instance, a letter from Mitch Stewart, Director of the Obama campaign’s “Organizing for America,” asks for donations. Ironically, Stewart laments that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is reportedly taking money from foreign sources. The reader is then prompted to give his name and email address and thereafter begins receiving solicitation letters for donations.

4. A Dutch blogger writing in Dutch on a Dutch website reprints an email from March 22, 2010 in which President Obama thanks his supporters for their help. “You’re welcome, Mr. President,” he writes back.

5. The Dutch blog “His Dirk” received a donation request from the campaign. Aware of the U.S. law, the blogger decided not to contribute. The blogger observed, “I imagine many non- Americans have money transferred to the Obama campaign. It’s just too easy.”

6. A member of the Italian Radical Socialist movement and an administrator of their website reposts solicitations from the Obama campaign which he reports receiving regularly for three years. “And because we are three years in his mailing list...But frankly after 3 years his letters excite me much less...”

7. A Japanese blogger named Isogaya posts a link to the Obama campaign’s donation page. When posting the link, Isogaya notes that an option in giving would be to give a gift card.

8. A Norwegian blogger posts a solicitation from the Obama campaign, including the link to the donate page. When another blogger opines that non-U.S. citizens cannot contribute because of American law, the blogger responds in Norwegian,“I have in practice given money to Obama, I had done it.”

9. A blogger in Egypt who serves on the board of the Union of Arab Bloggers posts the solicitation letters he reports to regularly receive from the Obama campaign.127 “We as Arabs and Muslims” support the “Democratic party, compared to the Republican Party,” but notes his objection to the President’s stand on gay marriage.WIDESPREAD CORRUPTION

Although GAI's findings were most prominent with Obama for America, the “CCV loophole” is a problem across the political spectrum. The report found nearly half of Congress is at least vulnerable to fraud and foreign donations.

Of the 446 House and Senate members who have an online donation page, 47.3% do not require the three or four digit credit card security number (officially called the Card Verification Value, or the CVV) for Internet contributions.During his run for U.S. Senate, then Republican candidate Marco Rubio’s campaign donation website didn’t have CVV protection. The protection was put in place in May 2012 after the campaign was over. The report alleges the connection to foreign websites could be a violation of the Federal Election Commission solicitation laws and at minimum put Rubio at risk for fraud in his campaign.

The Government Accountability Institute found considerable international interest in the Rubio campaign, including significant foreign traffic going to the website marcorubioforussenate.com. Links on foreign websites often took the form of videos that featured links to “donate” to the Rubio campaign.Sukhia also mentioned the Rubio campaign in his anaylsis of the report.

“The Government Accountability Institute found considerable international interest in the Rubio campaign, including significant foreign traffic going to the website marcorubioforussenate.com.”“GAI found numerous video links on foreign websites that featured running ads to “donate” to the Rubio campaign.”Although campaigns may have CVV in place, organizations they take money from often times do not. For example, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has accepted more than $5.7 million from ActBlue, a fundraising organization that does not require U.S. citizenship verification or a CVV code when accepting contributions.

Because the problems of potential fraud due to a lack of CVV use are so widespread, GAI created a 50-state interactive map to show which members of Congress lack standard secure campaign donation websites.

SOLUTION FOR OBAMA CAMPAIGN

In his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Obama said, “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities.”

In this situation, the foreign donation problem coming from online sources can be solved and President Obama’s promise of transparency can be kept in one click by enabling all security protections and releasing the names and records on all transactions under $200 to verify Obama for America is a clean campaign operating within FEC law.

Overall, major reforms are needed to ensure foreign contributions are not interfering with or influencing elections in the United States.

2 big questions raised in the debate I think were the lie about Romney's tax cut costing $5 trillion and the dispute over his whether his plan addresses pre-excisting conditions.

Paul Krugman took a strong shot at Romney in the NY Times and on ABC's This Week calling Romney a liar for his statement on pre-existing conditions and ripping Obama for not taking him to task for it. John Hinderaker thinks Krugman must have missed the debate:

Stung by their man’s miserable performance in Wednesday’s debate, the Democrats have tried to change the subject by claiming that Mitt Romney “lied” repeatedly during the debate. But they have had a tough time coming up with any actual lies. The chronically truth-challenged Paul Krugman somewhat ironically stepped up to the plate in a New York Times column on Thursday that was titled “Romney’s Sick Joke.” You can always count on Krugman for understatement. This was Krugman’s contribution to the “Romney lied” theme:

Krugman: “No. 1,” declared Mitt Romney in Wednesday’s debate, “pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” No, they aren’t — as Mr. Romney’s own advisers have conceded in the past, and did again after the debate. Was Mr. Romney lying? Well, either that or he was making what amounts to a sick joke. Either way, his attempt to deceive voters on this issue was the biggest of many misleading and/or dishonest claims he made over the course of that hour and a half. Yes, President Obama did a notably bad job of responding. But I’ll leave the theater criticism to others and talk instead about the issue that should be at the heart of this election. So, about that sick joke: What Mr. Romney actually proposes is that Americans with pre-existing conditions who already have health coverage be allowed to keep that coverage even if they lose their job — as long as they keep paying the premiums. As it happens, this is already the law of the land. But it’s not what anyone in real life means by having a health plan that covers pre-existing conditions, because it applies only to those who manage to land a job with health insurance in the first place (and are able to maintain their payments despite losing that job).

This is what Romney said during the debate:

MR. LEHRER: Let’s let the governor explain what you would do if “Obamacare” is repealed. How would you replace it? What do you have in mind?

MR. ROMNEY: Let — well, actually — actually it’s — it’s — it’s a lengthy description, but number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan. Number two, young people are able to stay on their family plan. That’s already offered in the private marketplace; you don’t have — have the government mandate that for that to occur.

But let’s come back to something the president — I agree on, which is the — the key task we have in health care is to get the costs down so it’s more affordable for families, and — and then he has as a model for doing that a board of people at the government, an unelected board, appointed board, who are going to decide what kind of treatment you ought to have.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No, it isn’t.

MR. ROMNEY: In my opinion, the government is not effective in — in bringing down the cost of almost anything. As a matter of fact, free people and free enterprises trying to find ways to do things better are able to be more effective in bringing down the costs than the government will ever be.

It continues from there. So, what does Romney’s health care proposal, which is basically a set of bullet points, say about pre-existing conditions?

Hinderaker:So does that “cover” pre-existing conditions, or not? I think it would have been clear to most listeners that Romney meant his plan would address or deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions, not that the federal government would buy insurance to cover them. (Romney’s plan does not involve the federal government buying health insurance for anyone, beyond the existing Medicare and Medicaid programs.) And Romney’s plan does indeed address the issue of pre-existing conditions, by banning discrimination against those who have them and who maintain health insurance continuously. The continuous insurance requirement is necessary to prevent the obvious dodge (which Krugman specifically acknowledges) of waiting until you get sick and then buying insurance.

So what we have here is a policy disagreement, not a lie. Krugman tries to suggest that Romney’s approach to pre-existing conditions is meaningless because “this is already the law of the land.” But here Krugman is wrong, not Romney. Krugman is referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which was adopted in 1996. HIPAA, as explained here, makes group health insurance portable because it “imposes limits on the extent to which some group health plans can exclude health insurance for pre-existing conditions.” But HIPAA “provides no protection if you switch from one individual health plan to another individual plan.” So Romney’s plan will indeed cover pre-existing conditions to a significantly greater degree than existing law. Moreover, Romney’s health care plan also proposes to “[e]nd tax discrimination against the individual purchase of insurance,” so the plan’s extension of portability to individual policies takes on added importance.

Health care policy can be debated endlessly, and Romney and Krugman obviously disagree. Krugman wants government-controlled medicine, and Romney wants to use the private sector and principles of competition to improve care and control costs. But for Krugman to say that Romney “lied” about his own health care proposal as it relates to pre-existing conditions is simply wrong.

Krugman trashes Obama’s debate performance in his column. In addition to the language quoted above, Krugman adds this at the end of the column:

One could wish that Mr. Obama had made this point effectively in the debate. He had every right to jump up and say, “There you go again”: Not only was Mr. Romney’s claim fundamentally dishonest, it has already been extensively debunked, and the Romney campaign itself has admitted that it’s false. For whatever reason, the president didn’t do that, on health care or on anything else. But, as I said, never mind the theater criticism.

Hinderaker: What is odd about this is that in the debate, rather than being unaccountably silent, Obama made precisely the point that Krugman did in his column. When Romney completed his answer, Obama said:

But let’s go back to what Governor Romney indicated, that under his plan he would be able to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Well, actually, Governor, that isn’t what your plan does. What your plan does is to duplicate what’s already the law, which says if you are out of health insurance for three months then you can end up getting continuous coverage and an insurance company can’t deny you if you’ve — if it’s been under 90 days.

But that’s already the law. And that doesn’t help the millions of people out there with pre-existing conditions. There’s a reason why Governor Romney set up the plan that he did in Massachusetts. It wasn’t a government takeover of health care. It was the largest expansion of private insurance. But what it does say is that insurers, you’ve got to take everybody.

So Obama misrepresented the extent to which Romney’s plan would change existing law, exactly as Krugman did. To which Romney responded:

And with regards to health care, you had remarkable details with regards to my pre-existing condition plan. You obviously studied up on — on my plan. In fact, I do have a plan that deals with people with pre-existing conditions. That’s part of my health care plan. And what we did in Massachusetts is a model for the nation, state by state. And I said that at that time. The federal government taking over health care for the entire nation and whisking aside the 10th Amendment, which gives states the rights for these kinds of things, is not the course for America to have a stronger, more vibrant economy.

So the very point that Krugman thought was missing from the debate was, in fact, thoroughly hashed out by the participants. Apparently Krugman was not paying close attention during the debate, and didn’t bother to check the transcript to make sure that the claim he made was correct. This is consistent with my impression that Krugman dashes off his Times columns in a half hour or less. Next time, he should exercise more care before declaring that those who disagree with him on issues of public policy are liars.

The President has come under fire for the shoddy verification processing his campaign does for donations.

In light of this Newsweek story about the Illegal-Donor loophole with Team ObamaA while back, among conservatives, it was even a story that he was doing this shoddy credit card verification for overseas donors.

So, after talking with some lawyers about the process, etc. I donated to Barack Obama. Sort of.

It is rare that I do something where I feel the need to talk to lawyers first. But giving money to Barack Obama was one of those times.

I didn’t actually do it. I made up a name, made up a passport number, made up an address in Russia — hell I made everything up except my credit card number and expiration date.

Got that?

Everything was bull**** except the actual credit card number and expiration date. Everything.

Go try that with Target or Amazon or Apple or Mitt Romney’s campaign and see what happens. Here’s a hint: it’d get rejected.

When the zip code does not match, it would get rejected.

When the name on the card does not match, it will probably get rejected.

President Obama’s team “put a target” on the backs of the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden, says Karen Vaughn in a video that suggests her son died three months later as a result of White House national security leaks.

“How dare they?” Mrs. Vaughn asks. “They put a target on my son’s back and even on my back. But a little over 90 days later, my son was dead.” Aaron Vaughn and 21 other Navy SEALs, “most of whom belonged to Team 6, the unit whose members were involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden,” according to ABC, died in Afghanistan when a helicopter he was riding on was shot down.

The video, released by the conservative Veterans for a Strong America, shows Vice President Joe Biden talking about the raid during a public event and Defense Secretary Robert Gates complaining that an agreement to keep the raid details secret “fell apart” as the result of such comments.

“Aaron called me,” Mrs. Vaughn says, referring to her son, Special Operations Chief Aaron Vaughn, who was killed on August 6, 2011. “He said, ‘Mom, you need to wipe your social media clean. Get rid of everything, any reference to me or my buddies, because there is chatter and all of our lives are possibly in danger, including yours.’”

Veterans for a Strong America, which previously released a video faulting Obama for politicizing the killing of bin Laden, encouraged voters to support the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket at the end of the video.

VSA executive director hinted that such a video might appear in this election cycle. “We’re looking to [put together] a coalition, to field SEALs and operators that want to come out publicly,” Arends told Buzzfeed after the release of the bin Laden video. “I’ve had a lot of discussions with former SEALs and current SEALs. I’ve been talking to operators in the community. There is palatable discontent.”

WASHINGTON DC - Engaged a relentless battle against time and fatigue, a select group of message scientists assembled by the White House's Center for Narrative Control say they will take "all steps necessary" to contain a recent outbreak of scrutonium, a deadly poll-eating supervirus that attacks the immuno-hope system, leaving victims vulnerable to material facts.

"Failure is simply not an option," said an exhausted Mission Chief David Axelrod. "If left unchecked, this virus may actually force us to move back to Chicago."

The recent re-infection of scrutonium into the body politic has been a harrowing turn of fortune for Axlerod and his scientific team. In November 2008, they had declared scrutonium "all but extinct," although they kept small amounts of the strain for use in laboratory experiments with Republican tax returns. It was thought to be in containment as recently as five weeks ago, with scientists citing poll results showing resistance to doses of unemployment previously considered fatal.

All that changed on September 12 after an unexpected outbreak in Benghazi, Libya. Although it caught Axlerod and his team by surprise, they were temporarily able to keep it under control with a regimen of YouTube blame therapy and gaffe-meme injections. But the new Benghazi strain proved stubbornly resistant, and has continued to slowly spread.

Amid their battle to contain the Benghazi strain, a second - and even more deadly - outbreak appeared in Denver on October 3. Nicknamed "the Doomsday Strain", the Denver scrutonium virus has thusfar been impervious to any attempt at containment.

"We're dealing with the ultimate buzzkiller here," said Senior Narrative Engineer Stephanie Cutter. "This one directly attacks voters' ability to hallucinate happy thoughts, or even ignore the obvious - no matter how many squirrels we innoculate them with."

Despite all-out efforts to contain the virus, by Friday daily internal gauge readings at CNC headquarters indicated a public opinion disaster was in the making. In order to buy time, Axlerod called on reserves from the 101st Media Narrative Squadron.

"With a virus this aggressive, you need boots on the ground to help fight any new outbreak and sterilize the area with distractions," said CNC jounalistic affairs liaison David Plouffe. "Luckily, the 101st is highly trained, unquestioningly loyal, and completely immune to all known post-2008 strains of scrutonium."

While Smith and others work around the clock to quarantine the virus, Axlerod and his team remain deep beneath the White House in a specially constructed containment laboratory, racing to find a cure before it has a chance to wipe out Washington as we know it. Although all their experiments have thusfar proven unsuccessful, Axlerod refuses to concede.

"If I've learned anything in this job, it's that hope is a strategy," he said, wiping flopsweat from his combover.

WASHINGTON DC - Engaged a relentless battle against time and fatigue, a select group of message scientists assembled by the White House's Center for Narrative Control say they will take "all steps necessary" to contain a recent outbreak of scrutonium, a deadly poll-eating supervirus that attacks the immuno-hope system, leaving victims vulnerable to material facts.

"Failure is simply not an option," said an exhausted Mission Chief David Axelrod. "If left unchecked, this virus may actually force us to move back to Chicago."

The recent re-infection of scrutonium into the body politic has been a harrowing turn of fortune for Axlerod and his scientific team. In November 2008, they had declared scrutonium "all but extinct," although they kept small amounts of the strain for use in laboratory experiments with Republican tax returns. It was thought to be in containment as recently as five weeks ago, with scientists citing poll results showing resistance to doses of unemployment previously considered fatal.

All that changed on September 12 after an unexpected outbreak in Benghazi, Libya. Although it caught Axlerod and his team by surprise, they were temporarily able to keep it under control with a regimen of YouTube blame therapy and gaffe-meme injections. But the new Benghazi strain proved stubbornly resistant, and has continued to slowly spread.

Amid their battle to contain the Benghazi strain, a second - and even more deadly - outbreak appeared in Denver on October 3. Nicknamed "the Doomsday Strain", the Denver scrutonium virus has thusfar been impervious to any attempt at containment.

"We're dealing with the ultimate buzzkiller here," said Senior Narrative Engineer Stephanie Cutter. "This one directly attacks voters' ability to hallucinate happy thoughts, or even ignore the obvious - no matter how many squirrels we innoculate them with."

Despite all-out efforts to contain the virus, by Friday daily internal gauge readings at CNC headquarters indicated a public opinion disaster was in the making. In order to buy time, Axlerod called on reserves from the 101st Media Narrative Squadron.

"With a virus this aggressive, you need boots on the ground to help fight any new outbreak and sterilize the area with distractions," said CNC jounalistic affairs liaison David Plouffe. "Luckily, the 101st is highly trained, unquestioningly loyal, and completely immune to all known post-2008 strains of scrutonium."

While Smith and others work around the clock to quarantine the virus, Axlerod and his team remain deep beneath the White House in a specially constructed containment laboratory, racing to find a cure before it has a chance to wipe out Washington as we know it. Although all their experiments have thusfar proven unsuccessful, Axlerod refuses to concede.

"If I've learned anything in this job, it's that hope is a strategy," he said, wiping flopsweat from his combover.

First, the bandwagon effect affects fundraising. Once you move outside the partisan core, people like to back winners. This is especially true of the business community. By assiduously cultivating its front-runner status, the Obama campaign has aided its ability to press future arguments.

Second, maintaining a lead allows greater leeway in the arguments it can make. Something like the “cancer ad” from August looks hard-hitting from a campaign that is leading (and I certainly include candidate super PACs as part of the “campaign”), but would probably be described as “desperate” from one that is losing.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it affects press portrayals of the candidates and party enthusiasm. This is the most important thing here: I still think the default expectation here has been that Obama should be losing. “Defying gravity” is hardly an original motif for this election, after all.

So the view that Obama is going to lose can -- or at least could have -- quickly become the conventional wisdom. If that happens, we would end up with a vicious cycle that looks something like this: The Democratic base becomes downtrodden, its enthusiasm falls, the right’s enthusiasm skyrockets, the likely-voter screens skew more Republican, and Obama falls even further behind in the polls. Instead, we have a campaign where everyone marvels at Obama's constant lead, further adding to the mythos surrounding his supposed inability to lose.

This is why the Oct. 3 debate really might have marked an important, structural change point in the campaign. Now, I’m emphatically not arguing that Obama can’t win the election after his poor performance (and Romney's strong performance) at that face-off. In fact, I still regard him as the slight favorite. But we’ve seen exactly the combination Team Obama worked assiduously to avoid: Romney re-consolidating his base, Republican enthusiasm skyrocketing, and the president’s aura of invulnerability pierced.This leaves two important, unknown questions. First, to where does gravity pull Obama? Is the mean to which he regresses a narrow lead? Or is it a significant loss? Political science models are split, with the average model showing an Obama lead of a few 10ths of a point. We don't yet really know where gravity naturally drags the president to, although the bottoms he reached over the summer suggest that it would be at least a small Romney lead with likely voters.

Second, what else, if anything, does Team Obama have to push back against gravity? The 47 percent video seems like something that would normally be held until later in the campaign. Is there anything else it can use to push back against the natural trajectory of the race? We’ll find out, and if we get a few more polls like the Pew poll, I suspect that we will find out sooner rather than later.

Obama 'believed he had BEATEN Romney' in Denver debate - after ignoring advice of top aides on preparationObama believes he'd got the better of Romney as he walked off stage to the dismay of his aides, according to a Democrat close to the campaign The President failed to prepare properly, opting instead to visit the Hoover Dam the day before the showdown Democrat claims he was so disdainful of Romney that he didn't think he needed to even engage with him Had one-liners on 47% prepared but chose not to use themBy Toby HarndenPUBLISHED: 11:25 EST, 9 October 2012 | UPDATED: 16:52 EST, 9 October 2012

When President Barack Obama stepped off the stage in Denver last week the 60 million Americans watching the debate against Mitt Romney already knew it had been a disaster for him.But what nobody knew, until now, was that Obama believed he had actually won.In an extraordinary insight into the events leading up to the 90 minute showdown which changed the face of the election, a Democrat close to the Obama campaign today reveals that the President also did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the advice of senior aides and ignored one-liners that had been prepared to wound Romney.

Hubris: Obama's central problem was that he was so disdainful of Romney that the President, seen here boarding Air Force One in San Francisco today, didn't believe he needed to engage with him

A winning smile? Obama grins durign the debate with Romney full of confidence that he was going to win

The Democrat said that Obama's inner circle was dismayed at the 'disaster' and that he believed the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn't believe he needed to engage with him.'President Obama made it clear he wanted to be doing anything else - anything - but debate prep,' the Democrat said. 'He kept breaking off whenever he got the opportunity and never really focused on the event.

'He went into the debate armed with a number of one-liners to throw at Romney, including at least two about Romney not caring about 47 per cent of the country. But he decided not to use them.'

Anything but prep: Obama visited the Hoover Dam the day before the debate rather than prep

The Democrat, who is aligned with the Obama campaign and has been an unofficial adviser on occasions, said that David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, was stunned that the President left the stage feeling that he had won the debate.'To his credit, the President believes that debates are about substance rather than performance. He felt that his argument about the direction this country should take was much stronger than Romney's. Unfortunately, that's not the way modern debates work.'

During his debate preparation in Henderson, Nevada, Obama broke off to visit a campaign field office. There, he joked with a volunteer about how his advisers were 'keeping me indoors all the time' to practice. 'It's a drag. They're making me do my homework.'

More...Sesame Street tells Obama campaign to take down ad which mocks Romney by showing Big Bird as 'evil genius' The scale of Obama's humilation revealed: Romney scores 52-point debate victory - the BIGGEST in Gallup poll history Clueless star Stacey Dash accused of 'not being black enough' on Twitter for endorsing Romney Where's the Secret Service when you need them? Over-zealous chef repeatedly wipes down the face of a shocked Mitt Romney during restaurant photo op Waiter goes into hiding after he told President that Obamacare saved his mother during anniversary meal - and the president repeated the story at packed Hollywood fundraiser Obama campaign 'may have violated federal election law by allowing foreign donors to funnel in cash via its website'

Obama also decided to take a break to visit the Hoover Dam. 'Its spectacular, and I've never seen it before,' he told reporters during the visit, which came about because an aide had mentioned the dam was nearby. I said, 'Well, we've got to go check it out".'Even before the debate, some advisers were worried that Obama, who had been distracted and detached during some of the sessions in which Senator John Kerry had played Romney, would have an off night.

Looking for a way forward: Obama is all smiles as he lands in Rickenbacker Inland Port, in Columbus, Ohio, today to campaign in the swing state

But in his closing statement in Denver, Obama said that it had been 'a terrific debate and I very much appreciate it' - an upbeat comment that reflected his view that he had at the very least held his own against Romney.But he then delivered a line that bemused his advisers: 'You know, four years ago, I said that I'm not a perfect man and I wouldn't be a perfect president. And that's probably a promise that Governor Romney thinks I've kept.'The Democrat said: 'It was as bad as "likeable enough". The President thought he was being bitingly sarcastic about what he saw as Romney's overly-aggressive performance. But to your swing voter it was as if he was waving the white flag of surrender.'

My reaction: The moderator did okay, that's a tough job and she tried to ask tough questions both ways and tried to keep a little order.

I think both sides got what they wanted from their candidate. More interesting will be to find out what people in the middle thought of what they saw and heard.

Biden was annoying and obnoxious with distracting groans and interruptions, laughing at his opponent sometimes instead of listening. I think the anger in his passion will play better with the base than with the undecideds. Ryan was more restrained and respectful. They both appeared informed, passionate and energetic.

The real story is what you didn't hear. Biden like Obama gave no defense of why this economy is acceptable and failed to give any reason to believe the next 4 years will be any better.

Ryan's closing statement was particularly clear and effective. ------------CBS reporting quickly that 50% think Joe Biden won this debate. ------------Going back to the first debate, Gallup said Romney won by 50 points, 71 to 20%, the largest margin in Presidential debate polling history. We saw the painful picture of Michelle joining her defeated husband on stage. Now we find out the President did not know he lost. Vanity surpassed only by sending the Queen of England a DVD player as a gift pre-loaded with his best campaign speeches. Unbelievable.

My reaction: The moderator did okay, that's a tough job and she tried to ask tough questions both ways and tried to keep a little order.

An excellent point. A professional...

Biden was annoying and obnoxious with distracting groans and interruptions, laughing at his opponent sometimes instead of listening. I think the anger in his passion will play better with the base than with the undecideds. Ryan was more restrained and respectful. They both appeared informed, passionate and energetic.

Agreed. See my post on the Ryan thread.

Ryan's closing statement was particularly clear and effective.

I think he was clear and effective in several places. His discussion of Romney's philanthropy was excellent. Most importantly, he showed why he is on the ticket. Thoughtful, knowledgeable and consistent. Well done.------------CBS reporting quickly that 50% think Joe Biden won this debate. ------------Going back to the first debate, Gallup said Romney won by 50 points, 71 to 20%, the largest margin in Presidential debate polling history. We saw the painful picture of Michelle joining her defeated husband on stage. Now we find out the President did not know he lost. Vanity surpassed only by sending the Queen of England a DVD player as a gift pre-loaded with his best campaign speeches. Unbelievable.

I thought the moderator did a remarkably weak job with Biden's interruptions and that at certain points was decidedly more argumentative with Ryan. I wish Ryan had been more forceful in response to Biden's interruptions.

Biden did well motivating his base I think. I think Ryan showed himself to be a quick study on foreign affairs but that he stumbled with regard to exit from Afpakia; IMHO Joe definitely scored well on this. Across the spectrum the American people are tired of a poorly conceived war with no prospect of either party getting it right (the YA-Denny doctrine ) and wonder why not come home tomorrow. Though on certain issues Ryan did quite well I really wish he had gotten in Joe's face instead of letting him off the hook at several points.

Will The Election Results Cause Massive Riots To Erupt All Over America?

Michael SnyderThe Economic CollapseOct 12, 2012

Will the most divisive campaign in modern American history culminate in massive riots in our major cities? Right now, supporters of Barack Obama and supporters of Mitt Romney are both pinning all of their hopes on a victory on November 6th. The race for the presidency is extremely tight, and obviously the side that loses is going to be extremely disappointed when the election results are finalized. But could this actually lead to violence? Could we actually see rioting in communities all over America? Well, the conditions are certainly ripe for it.

A whole host of surveys over the past few years have shown that Americans are very angry and very frustrated right now. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll from late last year found that 86 percent of all Americans are either angry or frustrated with the federal government. We have seen this frustration manifest in protest movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, but right now things are fairly calm as liberals and conservatives both look forward to November 6th. Many Republicans started the countdown to the next election literally the day after John McCain lost back in 2008.

All of their hopes of getting Obama out of the White House are riding on a Romney victory. For many Democrats, Barack Obama is a “once in a generation” icon. Just the thought of Mitt Romney replacing Obama in the White House is enough to push many of them to the brink of insanity. In recent years we have seen horrible rioting erupt in cities after major sports championship games. How much worse could the rioting potentially be if this bitterly contested election is decided by a very narrow margin – especially if there are allegations that the election is “stolen”?

The election is nearly four weeks away, and many Obama supporters are already threatening to riot if Obama loses. The following are some very disturbing messages that were posted on Twitter recently that have been reposted on Twitchy.com….

“If Romney wins I’m Starting a Riot….Who’s WIT ME???”

“I Hope The USA Is Well Aware That If In The Event This Character Romney Wins The Election, The People Will Start A Country Wide Riot! #Power”

“If Romney is elected president, its gon be a riot its gon be a riot.”

“If ROMNEY GETS IN THE WHITE HOUSE …U MIGHT AS WELL KILL ME NOW …..CAUSE ITS GONNA BE A ************ RIOT !!!”

“If Romney became President and took away welfare Downtown Cincinnati would become a riot”

The following are a few more tweets that I found which threaten a potential riot if Obama loses the election….

From @joecools_world….

“Need 2 come up wit a game plan if Romney win…. Riot all thru Newark”

From @killacate….

“I swear on everything I love if Romney wins ima riot. I don’t even care if its just me.”

Romney supporters are not really threatening to riot, but many of them are proclaiming that they may leave the country if Obama wins. Here are some examples….

From @BrentskiTheBoss….

“If Obama gets reelected I may leave the country”

From @AbbieFickes….

“im sorry but if obama were to win again, i might as well leave the country and live in zimbabwe”

This presidential campaign has been getting increasingly heated, and individuals on both sides have been committing some despicable acts.

For example, in a previous article I mentioned that some Romney campaign signs down in Virgina have been smeared with excrement.

Over in Ohio, a huge pile of manure was dumped right in front of Warren County Democratic headquarters early on Tuesday morning….

Volunteers at the Warren County Democratic headquarters, just north of Cincinnati, were shocked and disappointed by a political prank unloaded on them early Tuesday morning – someone dumped a pile of horse manure in the parking lot of the headquarters building on US 42, just north of Lebanon.

It appears that both sides have resorted to literally slinging crap around.

There is so much hate in America today, and this campaign is bringing a lot of it to the surface. It is even being reported that a bus driver told a 12-year-old boy that he should have been aborted because his family has a Romney campaign sign in their yard….

Belling read a letter from the 12-year-old boy’s mother, detailing the alleged abusive behavior by the bus driver.

Apparently, the Romney-Ryan yard sign bugs the bus driver and she’s been harassing the boy, making rude comments to him related to politics.

When the driver engaged the 12-year-old boy in a political conservation, he responded by saying that Obama is pro-abortion.

The bus driver allegedly said to the child, “Maybe your mom should have chosen abortion for you.”

How sick is that?

You can strongly disagree with someone without being mean and without being hateful.

Right now, the United States is a bubbling cauldron of frustration and anger that could be set off at any moment. This election could potentially be a “trigger point” which could end up unleashing a lot of that anger and frustration.

Already, there have been allegations that the Republicans have been committing voter registration fraud. Democrats are furious about this.

Evidence has also emerged that Democrats have been willing to assist voters in registering to vote in two different states. The following is from a recent article by Mac Slavo….

When undercover reporters visited various locations across the country they received the same response from Obama campaign staffers – that it’s basically okay to vote multiple times if you happen to be registered in two or more states.

In Houston, Texas, for example, the Project Veritas reporter made her intentions known, and rather than being rebuffed for her planned illegal activity, she was provided assistance with obtaining the proper forms to be registered in two states and was told to say “I don’t know” if the double-voting ever became an issue.

Similar situations unfolded at other DNC funded community organizations.

It appears quite probable that whichever side loses this election will accuse the other side of stealing the election.

And if millions of Americans feel that the election has been stolen from them, that will make it much more likely that we will see rioting.

Keep your ears open for phrases such as “voter fraud” and “election fraud” following this election. People are so angry already that even allegations that someone stole the election could be enough to set the streets of America on fire.

As always, let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst.

Read more of Michael Snyder’s reports at Economic Collapse Blog.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Joe Biden's unbounded id is the talk of the nation after Thursday's debate. But the Veep is also the elder Democratic statesman on international affairs, and in between his snickers, guffaws and "malarkey," he shed newsworthy light on Obama Administration foreign policy. Let's roll the tape.

On Iran, Mr. Biden broke new ground, though most of the media missed it. To a question about the Administration's willingness to stop the Tehran regime from going nuclear, he said what matters isn't Iran's ability to enrich uranium to weapons grade. It's whether it can build and deliver a bomb.

"They are a good way away," he said. "When my friend [Paul Ryan] talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20% up. Then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point."

"Let's all calm down a little bit here," Mr. Biden said a few minutes later.

In other words, Iran may have made progress toward enriching enough uranium to sufficient strength to build a bomb in the past four years, but that's immaterial. Based on the Vice President's intelligence, Iran isn't close to getting the trigger mechanism, missiles and all the other things needed to deploy a weapon. So don't worry.

Hmmm. For a decade, the U.S. and Europe have focused on coaxing and coercing the Iranians to stop enrichment above all else. That's because this is the hardest thing about building a bomb. Iran has in any case worked to develop missiles and triggers with help from Russians, North Koreans and others. In a clearer moment this summer, Mitt Romney said he would insist that Iran not enrich any uranium, even ostensibly for peaceful purposes. He failed to repeat this demand in his foreign-policy speech this week.

Biden and Ryan dive into foreign policy, debate on what steps each platform will take with Iran in terms of military action. .To hear Mr. Biden tell it, the Obama Administration now has a new red line on Iran. The mullahs can enrich as much uranium as they wish as long as they "don't have something to put it in." This isn't the red line Israel's Bibi Netanyahu had in mind during his recent speech before the United Nations. Nor are Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others looking for proof of an Iranian ICBM before they decide to go nuclear themselves. Iran becomes a regional nuclear power when it demonstrates its ability to get the bomb at almost a moment's notice, which is when it has developed enough fuel for it.

The Veep made a spirited case as well for doing nothing in Syria—no "no fly" zones, direct arms supplies to the rebels, or any U.S. political lead in an intervention. "If, in fact, it blows up and the wrong people gain control, it's going to have impact on the entire region, causing potentially regional wars," he said of Syria. News stories suggest this is happening already without any U.S. involvement, as the Syrian war pulls in Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.

Mr. Biden appeared to preview another Obama policy shift on Afghanistan. With a 2014 deadline to transition the security lead to the Kabul government, the discussion will shift to how large the American military footprint will be afterward—with up to 30,000 U.S. troops left behind to ensure the Taliban don't overrun Kabul again.

But Mr. Biden said something different: "We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process we're going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion." He added that Afghan forces are ready to defend the country themselves and lead the fight in the difficult east, another piece of intelligence that's news to us.

On the attacks in Benghazi, Mr. Biden turned uncharacteristically terse. A day before the debate, a House hearing revealed that the U.S. Embassy in Libya had been concerned about a rising al Qaeda-linked Islamist threat and had requested, but was denied, security reinforcements.

"Well, we weren't told they wanted more security again," said Mr. Biden, contradicting the testimony of State Department officials. He also blamed "the intelligence community" for the Administration's initial and false assertions that Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American colleagues were killed in a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam video on YouTube. This is the same "intelligence community" he is sure can tell us with certainty when Iran has a bomb and the Taliban is defeated.

Asked Friday about Mr. Biden's claims, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "He was speaking directly for himself and for the President. He meant the White House. . . . No one who testified about this matter suggested that requests for additional security were made to the President or the White House. These are issues appropriately that are handled by security professionals at the State Department. And that's what he was talking about." So blame State and the intelligence community.

Don't worry, be happy may be a good campaign theme for Mr. Biden. Don't worry about a resurgent al Qaeda in North Africa. Or the escalating war in Syria. Or Iran's mullahs with weapons grade uranium, or Vladimir Putin's increasingly anti-American policy, or China's muscular antics in the Pacific. Overseas, said Mr. Biden, this Administration has "repaired our alliances so the rest of the world follows up again." He clearly knows something the world doesn't.

Biden told a series of whoppers on Obama's "foreign policy," such as it is - during the debate. That neither Ryan nor the debate moderator called him on these obvious lies (particularly about Benghazi) is regrettable, to say the least. Look for this administration to throw Hillary Clinton under the bus next. It's very clear that this is their plan. Biden essentially said so in the debate. "No one told us." Oh, really? Bill Clinton was furious about having the "race card" pulled on him during the 2008 campaign. Now it's Hillary's turn to eat an excrement sandwich.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Biden told a series of whoppers on Obama's "foreign policy," such as it is - during the debate. That neither Ryan nor the debate moderator called him on these obvious lies (particularly about Benghazi) is regrettable, to say the least.

Look for this administration to throw Hillary Clinton under the bus next. It's very clear that this is their plan. Biden essentially said so in the debate. "No one told us." Oh, really? Bill Clinton was furious about having the "race card" pulled on him during the 2008 campaign. Now it's Hillary's turn to eat an excrement sandwich.

The dowager empress won't take that lying down. It might be time to make some popcorn and enjoy the show.

Biden told a series of whoppers on Obama's "foreign policy," such as it is - during the debate. That neither Ryan nor the debate moderator called him on these obvious lies (particularly about Benghazi) is regrettable, to say the least.

Professional.

So now you want the moderator to get in a participant's face, at least figuratively. Please... be consistent. It is not as if Ryan was free of error, and it is not as if the so-called left leaning press hasn't made mention of the Biden discussion of Libya.